The Royalty on Film Blogathon: The Swan (1956)
Directed by Charles Vidor, The Swan (1956) begins in 1910 in a Ruritanian kingdom in Central Europe, where Princess Beatrix (Jessie Royce Landis) is eager to make a match between her daughter, Princess Alexandra (Grace Kelly), and a distant cousin, Crown Prince Albert (Alec Guinness), in order to regain the throne that Napoleon took from her family. When the prince arrives with his imperious mother, Queen Maria Dominika (Agnes Moorehead), for a four-day visit with Beatrix and her family — which includes her aunt Symphorosa (Estelle Winwood), her brother Father Carl Hyacinth (Brian Aherne), and her two younger sons, George (Van Dyke Sparks) and Arsene (Christopher Cook) — he prefers sports and shooting activities to time with Alexandra. In a measure of desperation, Beatrix forces Alexandra to show interest in Dr. Nicholas Agi (Louis Jourdan), the family's handsome young tutor, to make Albert jealous and stimulate a proposal for him. Nicholas, who has been secretly in love with Ale...